Chile and India team up for sustainable energy

In a world of new technology and innovative ideas, Chile continues be a leader for sustainable practices and green initiatives. Now the Chilean government is strengthening ties with its counterparts in India in the hopes the two countries can work together as the Andean nation looks to diversify its energy sector.

Last month Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Indian Minister of New and Renewable energy, met with Chile’s Energy Minister Jorge Bunster and traveled to the Atacama, where solar projects are taking advantage of the arid landscape to create clean, renewable energy.

“India and Chile have one thing in common: they import the large majority of their energy from the outside,” Abdullah told Chilean newspaper The Santiago Times.

As Chile moves forward with a variety of sustainable projects, various Indian institutions with expertise in the field will be joining the effort such as the Center for Wind Energy, Solar Energy Center and Alternate Hydro Energy Center. The Indian minister also said that his country will be welcoming Chilean students to study abroad at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s institute in Delhi.

“We’ll start their course straight away so there is no delay” Abdullah said. “Chile will start [advancing with green energy] in the coming year.”

Chile has big plans for implementing sustainable projects across the country. Recently Chile’s upper house passed a revised renewable energy bill that calls for 20 percent of the nation’s energy consumption to come from renewables by 2025. President Sebastián Piñera went even further in the quest to find green alternatives, previously setting a target of 20 percent by 2020.

Per square foot, the Atacama Desert has the highest capacity for solar radiation in the world — more so than the Sahara Desert, Arabian Desert or Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. Given this immense capacity for green energy production it is no wonder so many international companies and major initiatives are flocking to Chile to get involved in the cutting edge developments happening across the country.